Entangling Aegean Ritual in Philistine Culture

Abstract

This paper proposes to examine identity as a category is structured through processes of ritualized behavior, belief, and encounter with the ‘Other’, an approach that opposes the Cartesian duality of mind and body. Instead, it is influenced by the ideas of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, that human identity, including thought, is lived through the body as a practice of embodied experience and of Anthony Giddens, that there is a duality of structure that constrains and enables human behavior. To the extent that individuals are capable of changing their lives through manipulating the spatial organization of their culture, they are modifying their routines and transforming their identities. Thus, examin..